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Ban Ki-moon Summit at risk of being another missed opportunity to stop climate change making more people hungry

Since global leaders last met to discuss climate change five years ago, climate-related disasters have cost the world almost half a trillion dollars. More than 650 million people have been affected and more than 112,000 lives have been lost. Climate change is also making more people hungry. The September 23, 2014 UN Climate Summit reflects inertia in tackling climate change rather than reversing it. The Summit must be a wake-up call for government leaders and the private sector.

In this media brief, The Summit that Snoozed? Oxfam analyses the commitments being brought by government and corporate sector leaders to the Climate Summit and reveals that they fall short of what is urgently needed.
Oxfam is calling on governments to:

Re-commit to the 2C goal, and agree new targets to phase-out fossil fuel emissions entirely by 2050

Increase their climate finance pledges to meet the $100bn per year by 2020 commitment, and capitalise the Green Climate Fund with at least $15bn in grant-based funds over its first three years

Agree specific, time-bound, measurable actions in line with their responsibility for causing emissions and capacity to pay to reduce them before 2020, to keep open the chance of limiting warming to below 2C

Submit ambitious initial pledges for the Paris UN climate conference by Spring 2015, in line with their responsibility for causing emissions and capacity to pay, and prepare to subsequently raise them as needed as part of a fair collective global effort

and the private sector to:

Put their own houses in order by delivering faster and further near-term reductions in absolute emissions consistent with climate science, and establish goals to phase-out fossil fuel emissions entirely from their operations

Increase their calls for strong government regulation and international agreements, including related to energy efficiency, investment in renewable energy, cutting fossil fuel subsidies, and increasing flows of climate finance for adaptation.

The number of people killed, displaced or in desperate need of assistance as a result of the conflict in Syria continues to rise. A staggering 190,000 people have been killed and 6.5 million displaced inside Syria. And with 3 million refugees, it is now one of the biggest refugee crises since the end of the Second World War. The crisis is posing a serious risk to the security and stability of neighbouring countries and has contributed to the destabilisation of Iraq.

The sheer scale of this crisis demands specific and increased commitments from members of the international community to help alleviate the suffering: to fully fund the aid response, to offer refugees resettlement, and to halt the transfer of arms and ammunition. This briefing shows that the international community is falling far short in each of these areas.

The most recent escalation of violence in Gaza and southern Israel has come at terrible human cost. More than 1,500 civilians in Gaza, and six in Israel, have been killed. Over 100,000 Palestinians have been left homeless and vital civilian infrastructure worth billions of dollars has been destroyed in Gaza. The recent ceasefire announcement is certainly a welcome one, but is only the first step on a long road toward lasting peace.

Unless long-term solutions are found to ensure economic growth and sustainable development in Gaza, frequent military escalations will only continue, increasing insecurity for Israelis and Palestinians alike. The Israeli government’s implementation of a policy of separation – politically and physically isolating Gaza from the West Bank – has resulted in the fragmentation of the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) and is a major obstacle to the chances of lasting peace.

The conflict between Palestinians and Israelis requires a long-term political solution that begins with a lasting ceasefire, continues with the end of the blockade of Gaza, and ends with a negotiated peace based on international law.

Across G20 countries and beyond, women are paid less than men, do most of the unpaid labour, are over-represented in part-time work, and are discriminated against in the household, in markets and in institutions. In 2012 in the Los Cabos Declaration, G20 leaders committed to tackling the barriers to women’s full economic and social participation and to expanding opportun ities for women in their countries. Oxfam supports this commitment, and calls on the G20 to go further and assess its agenda and actions on women’s rights and gender equality.

During the Australian presidency, the G20 has the chance to make good its promises for truly inclusive growth – working to make women more resilient to economic crisis through gender-sensitive economic growth and gender-equal employment policies.

In 2015 the world has a historic opportunity to set ambitious goals to end poverty and protect the planet. As the era of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) comes to an end, two major injustices continue to undermine the efforts of millions of people to escape poverty and hunger: inequality and climate change.

For the food and beverage industry, climate change is a major threat. For millions of people, it means more extreme weather and greater hunger. The Big 10 companies are significant contributors to this crisis, yet they are not doing nearly enough to help tackle it.

In this paper, Oxfam calls on the Big 10 to face up to the scale of greenhouse gas emissions produced through their supply chains, and address the deforestation and unsustainable land-use practices they allow to happen.

Tax dodging by big corporations deprives governments of billions of dollars. This drives rapidly increasing inequality. Recent G20 and OECD moves to clamp down on corporate tax dodging are a first step, but these have woken up a legion of opponents set on undermining them. Most developing countries, which lose billions to corporate tax dodging annually, are also being left out of the decision making. Commercial interests must not be allowed to pursue their agenda at the cost of the public interest. All developing countries must be included in negotiations, and corporations must pay what they owe.

Typhoon Haiyan (known locally as Yolanda) left four million people homeless. Local authorities are preparing to relocate thousands of them, to protect them from future disasters. However, current plans ignore key elements of sustainable relocation processes, and lack technical guidance and support. People may see their rights denied and become poorer and more vulnerable to disasters.

How will climate change affect what we eat? Hunger is not and need never be inevitable. However climate change threatens to put back the fight to eradicate it by decades – and our global food system is woefully unprepared to cope with the challenge.

In the Pacific region, climate change could cause production of sweet potato in Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands to decline more than 50 per cent by 2050, and maize in Vanuatu and Timor Leste to decline by 6 - 14 per cent by 2050.

March 2014 marks the third year since the start of the conflict in Syria and the statistics make sobering reading. During these three years more than 100,000 people have been killed and 9.3 million are in need of humanitarian assistance. Around 6.5 million people have fled their homes and are now living in temporary accommodation, schools or other shelter across Syria. More than 2.4 million refugees – half of them children – have fled into neighbouring countries.